The Best Vegan Macaroni and Cheese Ever

katedanger's Note:

I found this recipe over at vegweb.com but I am typing it up here so I can use the easy conversions and see the nutritional information. It received so many positive comments that I have to try it. One of the only complaints is that it can be very salty, so you might want to consider cutting back on the soy sauce or not adding additional salt.

• Total Time: 8 mins
• Prep Time: 8 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 1/2 cups plain soymilk
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup tamari or 1/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 3 ounces firm tofu
• 1 cup canola oil
• 1 1/2 lbs macaroni noodles
• 2 teaspoons mustard (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Boil water in a big pot for the pasta.
3. All of the ingredients sans pasta can easily go in a blender (liquid and powdered) -- this is by far the easiest way.
4. Once pasta is cooked, drain and put it in the baking pan pour the cheese sauce over the pasta.
5. Bake until the top of the pasta looks slightly browned and crispy about 15 minutes.

Reviews

[james_in_utah]

Excellent recipe, but I find it hard to believe this thing has 900+ calories per cup, and 40 grams of protien per cup.

[lynnheisel]

Holy cow-free! A slam-dunk. Fast, easy and delicious. I'm hooked and so is my boyfriend, and we're not even vegans (he's a Wheresthebeef-kinda guy). Tweaked the recipe a little by cutting back on the tamari (by half), salt (by half) and oil (by 1/3), adding cayenne (1/4 tsp might have been too much) and using all the mustard and whole wheat noodles. I also used half corn oil, which has a nice, buttery flavor and covered part of it with whole wheat bread crumbs - added good texture. Sauce seemed runny but firmed up pretty good. It could use some non-pasta substance 'tween the noodles. Next time I'll use water-packed tofu instead of the silken I tried (and maybe blend that in by hand) and I'll start with less water, adding more as necessary.

[veggiefreak]

I was a little skeptical after blending up and tasting the "cheese" sauce but was pleasantly surprised at how tasty this actually turned out. I made the following changes: increased the nutritional yeast to 2 cups, 1 tsp fresh chopped garlic instead of 1 Tbsp garlic powder, omitted the additional 1 Tbsp salt (completely unnecessary), 1 tsp Colman's mustard powder instead of the 2 tsp mustard. The final thing that I think really made the dish for me was adding 1 pkg (10 oz) Follow Your Heart Cheddar cheese alternative, shredded. This will definitely suffice for when I have those mac and cheese cravings in the future.